The Wall Street Journal - USA (2020-12-02)

A16| Wednesday, December 2, 2020 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

BLM and Inauthenticity in Racial Relations

Shelby Steele’s “The Inauthenticity Behind Black Lives Matter” (op-ed, Nov. 23) abounds with baseless claims that “we blacks aren’t much victimized,” no longer “stunted by racial persecution” and “far more likely to encounter racial preferences than racial discrimination.” Nothing could be further from the truth. At Brady United I see reality re- fute Mr. Steele every day. To wit: “We blacks” are twice as likely to be killed by police than white Ameri- cans. “We blacks” are more likely than anyone else in the U.S. to die from gun homicide. “We blacks” are 13% of the population but account for almost half of the gun-violence deaths. This asymmetric loss doesn’t evince “racial preference” but rather the opposite. A recent review of liter- ature on how neighborhood charac- teristics interact with violent crime linked “structural disparities,” such as segregation, to racial disparities in violent crime rates. In other words, systemic racism is, in fact, real—as are its consequences. And, contrary to what Mr. Steele says, recognizing systemic racism doesn’t mean creating an identity of victimhood. That’s nonsense. I insist that black lives matter because I recognize, cherish and celebrate the full humanity of black people. Acknowledging and dis- mantling systemic racism isn’t a ves- tige of “the old victim-focused racial order” but an essential step toward reaching a new one. KELLYSAMPSON Brady United Washington

Many of those who state that America is systemically racist and, therefore, a dangerous country for people of color at the same time call for open borders or for a less restric- tive immigration policy. Why aren’t social-justice adherents warning po- tential immigrants about entering such an unsafe country? Were any sympathetic Germans encouraging Jews to emigrate to Nazi Germany? Of course not, which illustrates that these woke elites either don’t really believe in the systemic-racist doc- trine, or they simply do not care for the safety and well-being of immi- grant people of color. It must be one or the other. BRIANKARADASHIAN Escondido, Calif.

The only thing you need to know about the Black Lives Matter move- ment can be distilled from events that occurred Aug. 9. Barely men- tioned in the news was the largest mass shooting in over a year, at a

block party in Washington, D.C. About 21 people were shot, all black. The three or four shooters were also black. BLM doesn’t seem to care about the shooting or killing of black Americans by other blacks. If it did, this shooting would have had exten- sive coverage and there would have been demonstrations. What is BLM really trying to achieve? J.JOSEPHPERRY Salt Lake City

Shelby Steele’s counsel to “never deny the past, but it should only in- form and inspire.” We Jews were slaves in Egypt for 400 years, and we have long since moved (despite per- sistent anti-Semitism) from being victims to becoming survivors. Every time I open my prayer book we’re called to “remember that you were slaves.” And yet our sages were wise enough to caution that it was much easier to get Israel out of Egypt than to get Egypt out of Israel. Mr. Steele writes: “We don’t have to fight for freedom so much anymore. We have to do something more difficult—fully accept that we are free.” Hey, sometimes that means wan- dering in the desert for 40 years. RABBIREBECCAKUSHNER Iowa City, Iowa

I was born with spina bifida, in- volving a number of physical anoma- lies. But this was long enough ago that I was not promptly dropped into the category of “disabled.” I was treated as an individual, not a type. But society began to insist on the victim label. We are said to be aiming for diversity. But oddly the diversity move- ment, as we are experiencing it, actu- ally reinforces categorizing. Diversity goals must be organized as a man- ageable number of types, not a ca- cophony of individuals. Could this phenomenon be a true core of “structural isms,” whether racism, ableism or whatever—meaning not that racism or ableism persist dominantly in fact, but rather that our mental, me- dia and mythic capacities are so lim- ited that we cannot function as a large community except in gross types? Mr. Steele’s challenge that people accept the hard work of freedom and individuality may only be the smaller part of the solution he seeks. Even liberated in themselves, Americans will remain confronted by a system that demands types, including victims. What other way of organizing reality can deliver power and sell product so effortlessly? ROXANER.GARDETT Hailey, Idaho

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Shame May Make Misbehaving Pols Repent

Reading Jason Riley’s “The Politi- cal Class’s Hypocrisy Long Predates Covid-19” (Upward Mobility, Nov. 25), I am reminded of my own expe- rience in November 2006. My wife and I, after waiting on an hour-long security line in San Juan, were stopped so New York Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer and his entourage could jump the line to be ushered through security ahead of everyone else. They skipped the X-ray machines and bag scanners. The moans and groans

from those he passed were palpable and he clearly heard them. Once through security I got on a long line for the Subway shop and along came Mr. Spitzer, himself, who proceeded to get on the line. While others told him he could step in front of them, he repeatedly declined and stayed in place on line until he was served. Clearly he had received the message. Perhaps if we all complained more often and vociferously, the political elite would at least make an attempt to be less hypocritical. KENKOLKEBECK Sparta, N.J.

Pepper ... And Salt

President Trump Has Good Point on U.S. Drug Prices Regarding your editorial “Trump’s Gift to Joe Biden” (Nov. 23): High- minded talk about drug innovation is all well and good, but the reality is that Americans have been subsidizing the rest of the world’s price-fixed drugs for years. The only way to bring the Europeans and other rich coun- tries to the shared-cost table may be to join them briefly with price con- trols. We also have a problem of our own making with medical litigation. Allowing the plaintiffs bar to sue man- ufacturers even when their warning labels aren’t followed is a self-inflicted wound that we should cure first. CONANM.WARD Princeton, N.J.

Trump’s Abraham Accords Change Palestinians’ Plans “Palestinians to Resume Coopera- tion With Israel” (World News, Nov. 18) ascribes the offer to Palestinian “comfort with... Biden...andas- pirations to renew peace talks.” Omitted is the 800-pound gorilla in today’s Israeli-Arab world: normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bah- rain and Sudan. This normalization has removed the Palestinians from the nexus of Israeli-Arab relations, showing that the momentum for im- proving the lives of people in the region, Jews and Muslims, is bound up in real cooperation, economic ties, security coordination and health exchanges. While the Pales- tinians focus on pay for slay and right of return, obstacles to any peace with Israel, other Arab enti- ties are forward-looking. So the Pal- estinians are trying to get on a fast- moving ship. But has that ship sailed? MARSHALGREENBLATT Potomac, Md.

CORRECTION

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 against appeals from California and Nevada concerning limits on religious worship in the pandemic. A Nov. 27 editorial, “Fireworks Over Religious Liberty,” misstated the vote count.

Trump’s Fraud Claims Hit a Barr

B

ill Barr can take the heat, and on Tuesday
the stalwart Attorney General guaranteed
he’ll get it when he said “to date, we have
not seen fraud on a scale that
could have effected a different
outcome in the election.”
Mr. Barr told the Associated
Press that allegations of “par-
ticularized” fraud, with some
that “potentially cover a few
thousand votes,” are being explored. But Presi-
dent Trump is down by 150,000 votes in Michi-
gan, 80,000 in Pennsylvania, and 20,000 in Wis-
consin. As for the idea that voting machines
were compromised, Mr. Barr said the feds “have
looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen any-
thing to substantiate that.”
As specific claims of fraud get knocked down,
however, the broader tale of election theft takes
on the nature of the unfalsifiable. “We won the
election easily,” Mr. Trump said Sunday. He later
added: “It’s not like you’re going to change my
mind.” But where’s the hard evidence to con-
vince the country? Many of the theories floating
around don’t withstand scrutiny.

“Ballot dumps”: It’s being painted as suspi-
cious that big batches of votes were reported in
the early hours of Nov. 4. To take Wisconsin: Mr.
Trump complained in a tweet that Joe Biden got
“a dump of 143,379 votes at 3:42AM.” But the ex-
planation is prosaic: Contemporaneous report-
ing says this is when Milwaukee’s central count-
ing location finished with roughly 170,000 mail
ballots. They included votes for both candidates
but broke heavily for Mr. Biden.
The timing is unfortunate, but Wisconsin law
doesn’t let counties process absentee ballots un-
til Election Day, unlike states that reported early,
including Florida. Still, the margin in Milwaukee
County doesn’t look crazy: Mr. Biden won 69%
to 29%, compared with Hillary Clinton’s victory
of 65% to 29%. As a share of Wisconsin’s vote to-
tal, Milwaukee County fell to 13.9%, from 14.8%.
A recount finished last week increased Milwau-
kee’s tally by only 382 votes.
The same goes for Michigan, which reported
a similar batch of ballots in the wee hours of Nov.

State law says mail votes can’t be processed
until one day before the election. The overnight
jump for Mr. Biden appears to have come from
Wayne County, which includes Detroit. But again
the margins aren’t wild: Mr. Biden won there
68% to 30%, compared with Mrs. Clinton’s 67%
to 29%. As a share of Michigan overall, Wayne
County fell to 15.8%, from 16.2%.
Where Mr. Biden shined was the suburbs. To
take Pennsylvania, he won Philadelphia with 81%
to 18%, notably worse than Mrs. Clinton’s 83%
to 15%. Meantime, Philly shrank to 10.7% of the
state total, from 11.6%. But look at the surround-
ing areas: Mr. Biden beat Mrs. Clinton’s share by
3.1 points in Bucks County, 3.4 in Delaware

County, and 3.7 in Montgomery County.

Vote totals: “I got 74 million votes, the larg-
est in the history of a sitting president,” Mr.
Trump said Sunday. It’s 11 mil-
lion more than in 2016. Yet he
lost to Mr. Biden, who Mr.
Trump said “did not get 16 mil-
lion more votes than Barack
Hussein Obama.”
What’s unbelievable? The
electorate grows. Since 2012, the voting-eligible
population has risen by 17 million, according to
estimates by the U.S. Elections Project. Turnout
in 2020 was historic, helped by expanded absen-
tee voting. If enthusiasm was also high, perhaps
it’s because Donald Trump has been a polarizing
President and drove Democratic as well as Re-
publican turnout. As for the failure of bellwether
states, they’re predictive until they’re not. Flor-
ida and Ohio have trended red for years.

Poll watchers: Judges have dismissed affi-
davits submitted by the Trump camp as “rife
with speculation and guess-work” and “inadmis-
sible as hearsay.” Other claims made in public
circulate largely without being tested. A poll
watcher from Delaware County, Pa., alleged last
week, without giving any evidence, that 47 USB
cards used in the election “are missing, and
they’re nowhere to be found.” Where’s the
proof? “We are aware of these allegations,” says
Laureen Hagan, the chief elections clerk in Dela-
ware County. “They are false. All votes on all
scanners have been accounted for.”

Dominion: On Sunday, Mr. Trump called Do-
minion voting systems, used in dozens of states,
“garbage machinery.” But the totals from Geor-
gia’s hand recount closely matched the results
from its scanners. How does Mr. Trump explain
that? In an op-ed for these pages, Dominion’s
CEO denied the “bizarre” claim that his company
is tied to Hugo Chávez. Third-party labs, he said,
“perform complete source-code reviews on ev-
ery federally certified tabulation system.”
iii
Fighting such claims is like whack-a-mole. No,
Pennsylvania didn’t count more mail votes than
it sent out. No, Wisconsin didn’t have 89% turn-
out. No, several states didn’t simultaneously quit
counting ballots on election night. No, ballots in
Arizona filled out with Sharpie markers weren’t
discounted. In an election with 155 million votes,
there are no doubt irregularities and maybe
some fraud. But for Mr. Trump to win the Elec-
toral College, he’d need to flip tens of thousands
of votes in multiple states.
We’re open to evidence of major fraud, but we
haven’t seen claims that are credible. Now comes
Mr. Barr, who has no reason to join a coverup. He
likes his job. He wanted Mr. Trump to win. As the
election timetable closes, Mr. Trump should fo-
cus on preserving his legacy rather than dimin-
ishing it by alleging fraud he can’t prove.

TheAGsaysthefeds

have seen no evidence

to overturn the election.

The Woke Nasdaq

W

ith all the ways for business to raise
capital nowadays, listing on a U.S.
stock exchange has lost much of its
appeal. Enter the Nasdaq on Tuesday with a pro-
posal to make itself even less competitive.
The second largest exchange in the world has
asked the Securities and Exchange Commission
for permission to impose a quota system on the
boards of its listed companies. The new rule
would mandate that corporate boards have a
minimum of one woman director and one who is
a minority or LGBTQ. Small companies and for-
eign companies could get by with two women. No
mention of whether directors should know some-
thing about the business.
Like much of corporate America today, the
Nasdaq is virtue signaling at the expense of
someone else. This is far from its reason for be-
ing, which is a marketplace to raise money while
spreading the benefits of capitalism and corpo-
rate ownership. Imposing its own identity poli-
tics on some 3,300 listed companies meddles in
corporate management and will harm economic
growth and job creation.
A free society looks at the skill and talent of
individuals, not their physical appearances.
Companies have an interest in discovering talent
wherever they can find it. Smart companies
know a diverse workforce can be a competitive
advantage. But beyond demanding honest man-
agement and transparency for shareholders, the
exchange has no role in dictating personnel deci-
sions. Imposing quotas is contrary to good cor-
porate governance and puts politics ahead of the
purposes of a stock exchange.
In its filing with the SEC, according to the Wall

Street Journal, Nasdaq “cited multiple studies which found that greater diversity on boards is associated with improved corporate governance and financial performance.” But if that’s true, companies hardly need the Nasdaq to mandate the board’s makeup. Or is the Nasdaq suggesting that without its racial and gender orders, companies will eschew the profit motive? In a speech last year in San Diego, SEC com- missioner Hester Peirce addressed the pros and cons of diversity objectives, noting that “boards that make a concerted effort to be creative in looking to fill substantive gaps are likely to look in places they would not traditionally have looked.” But she warned against “formulations from the government [that] improperly override private sector decisions” and “an improper fed- eralization of corporate governance.” She also observed that “external microman- agement of board composition adds yet another cost to the already high cost of being a public company.” She’s right, and it comes when the number of public companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges is down 25% since the mid-1990s. Many founders prefer private placements, private equity and venture capital or even the OTC Market, a trading system for non-exchange listed equities. The current SEC is unlikely to grant Nasdaq’s request, but Joe Biden’s appointees probably will, given the demands of identity politics in the Democratic Party. Once upon a time the Nasdaq was an outlet for capital for sprightly entrepre- neurs. Its identity diktats suggest it is now about enforcing the political fashions of the day on private owners and management.

Whole Foods Capitalism

B

ernie Sanders may have made socialism
mainstream, but John Mackey isn’t buy-
ing. Recently the Whole Foods CEO char-
acterized socialism as “trickle up poverty”—
while defending capitalism as the “greatest
thing humanity’s ever done.”
Mr. Mackey offered his remarks while
promoting his latest book, “Conscious Lead-
ership.” The title points to the strategies he
pursued in building Whole Foods. But the
subtitle captures his larger message: “Ele-
vating Humanity Through Business.” His ar-
gument is that businesses make money by
creating value for others—producing goods
or services that people want and can afford,
creating livelihoods for workers, providing
returns for its investors and helping commu-
nities.
In founding Whole Foods, he admits he
wanted to make money. But he emphasizes

that what really drove him was a passion to put fresh and healthy food within reach of all Americans. He says too many progressives and universities never see this larger story because they can’t get past the idea of profits, which they believe are dirty. Too many business leaders fail to push back. “We’ve told a bad narrative,” he said, “and we’ve let the enemies of business and the enemies of capitalism put out a narrative about us that’s wrong.” It builds on his previous remarks that “from an ethical standpoint, we need to change the narrative of capitalism, to show that it’s about creating shared value, not for the few but for everyone.” Mr. Mackey is right to worry that socialism may win the argument even as in practice it always proves a disaster. Instead of shrinking from political criticism, other CEOs could learn from his example.

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